RETURN TO NATURE M

Where aing the Morning-stan in joy togetiier» And ail tfaings are at home.^

With genuine passion, and prophétie warning to a world taking the wrong way, he cries, in another place :

0 gradous Mother, in thy vast eternal sunlight Heal us, thy foolish children, from our sins ; Who heed tfaee net, but carçless of thy PMaenoe Tum our bent backs on thee, and scratch and scrabUe In ash-heaps for salvation.*

He bas withering scorn for the artificiality of much that is characteristic of modem Ufe :

In the dravdng-rooms I saw scarce one that seemed at ease;

They were half-averted sad anxious faces, impossiUe pompons faces, drawling miowling faces, peaked faces well provided with blinkers,

Ând their owners kept standing first on one 1^ and then on the other.*

Not less 80 for the timidity, infidelity, unreality, and lack of virility so manifest in the populations of towns and cities :

Thèse populations —

So puny, white-faced, machine-made,

Tutned out of feu^tories, ont of offices, ont of drawingrooms, by thousands ail alike —

Huddled, stitched up, in clothes, fearing a chill, a drop of rain, looMng timidly at the sea and sky as at strange monsters, or running back so quick to their ' suburban runs and burrows,

1 X. !>., p. 377. ■ Wrf., p. 425, • Ibid,, p. 139.

84 ARTIFICIALITY AND INFIDELITY

Dapper, libidinons, cute, with wash^-out small

What are thèse ?

Are they men and women ?

Each denying himself , hiding himself ?

Are they men and women ?

So timoTOus, like hares — a breath of propriety or custom, a draught of wind, the mère threat of pain or of danger?^

The humour and the (probably intentional) exaggeration of thèse passages soften the sting somewhat, but they are home-thrusts. When he speaks of some of the conditions of modem labour, however, he is at no pains to put the button on the f oil :

Cross-legged in a low tailor's den, gasping for breath —

The gas flaring, doors and Windows tight shut, the thick sick atmosphère ;

The men in their shirt-sleeves, vdth close beat from the stove, and smell of sweat and of the cloth ;

Stitching, stitching, twelve hours a day, no set time for meals —

Stitching, cross-stitching, button-holing, binding,

Silk twist, cotton twist, black thread, white thread,

Stouting, felling, pressing, damping,

Basting, seaming, opening seams, rantering,

With sore eyes, sick sick at heart, and furious.

In a low tailor's den he sits.

AU day in his mind — like a hunted criminal — he revolves;

How shall I escape ?

How change this misérable pittance for Freedom, and yet not starve ? *

In such passages, which might easily be multi-

» T. D., p. 266. » IM., p. 280

jf CAUSES OF DIVORCE FROM NATURE 85

lt$ plied, Carpenter suggests the existence in modem sodety of great areas of unnatural life. It takes several forms, but the thing is patent enough in the factories and in the churches, in the suburban ^. drawing-rooms and in the East End sweating- 'j, dens. He thinks that it is chiefly the cause of ail the diseases, physical, mental, moral, from which ^ modem society suffers (vide the scathing Zola- 15 esque, " Surdy the Time wiU come" *). How 1^ has this state of things come about ? How may CI it be remedied ? The fomaer is the prior question, i^ and happily can the more easily be answered. What causes hâve unhomed us in the world ? The Ust is not exhaustive, but three such causes can be named.

It will scarcely be denied that the Church — the i teachings and presuppositions of orthodox religion— ^has a good deal to answer for in this matter. It has taught us that the world is evil ; a temptation-haunted house of probation ; a devil's acre ; something to be perpetually struggled with ; a siren, so that to enjoy it is one of the great betrayals of the spiritual Ufe. AU natural things are evil, lie under the doom of a heavenly decree, and exist only to be annihilated by shock and { fire. " We are but pilgrims hère, Heaven is our ^ home." MortaUty is a kind of disease. Natural passions are sinister. We hâve been exhorted for long time to renounce this world, and to prépare for another one. The Church has set itself